


halt and catch fire

by Chiomi



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Abortion, F/M, Female Friendship, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Menstruation, Mild Blood, Morning Sickness, Nausea, One Shot, Pregnancy, Secret Identity, Teen Pregnancy, Unplanned Pregnancy, Unsafe Sex, no one is raped on or off-screen, your bff just gets super concerned when you don't know your babydaddy's name
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-23
Updated: 2016-08-23
Packaged: 2018-08-10 12:38:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7845271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chiomi/pseuds/Chiomi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>HCF is an idiom that refers to machine code that causes the CPU to cease to meaningfully function such that there’s no way for the system to recover without a restart. It takes a hell of a bug in the code to tell the system to halt and catch fire.</p><p>But a restart might open up new options.</p><p>(the abortion fic that literally no one asked for)</p>
            </blockquote>





	halt and catch fire

**Author's Note:**

> 2% of French teenage girls end up pregnant - as opposed to 8.5% in the US - and then 58% of them abort, compared to 35% in the US. I checked up on relevant laws and did a bunch of reading and used primary sources. So as far-fetched as it is that Marinette would end up pregnant in the first place, everything else is as accurate as I can make it.
> 
> Let me know if it needs additional tags.

The fight isn’t that much out of the ordinary - a programmer whose encryption algorithm had been stolen turning everyone into Picasso-esque ‘encrypted’ versions of themselves. Some banter, some wanton destruction of the office building they’d been called to, Chat provided a distraction and got himself cursed so Ladybug could snatch the USB necklace and smash it open. She cleansed the akuma, cast the Miraculous Cure, and fistbumped Chat. All as normal, except that her boyfriend had just broken up with her, she hadn’t gotten any sewing done in weeks, and she was just so, so tired of seeing Chat hurt for her.

So she’d kissed him, too, and he’d kissed her back. Her earrings beeped, and they broke apart. Paris businesses mostly run evacuation drills these days, so there are only a few people still in the cubicle farm, mostly shaking off their disorientation. Chat looked around, then pulled them both into a utility closet. Chat Noir had been her partner for four years, which wouldn’t seem like a long time except for everything they’ve been through. She’s closer to him than to any other human on Earth, even though she’s never seen his face behind the mask. What she feels for him is more intense than anything she’s ever felt for anyone else, maybe more than she can feel for anyone else. They can’t have anything outside the mask - can’t know each other outside the mask - but both of them knowing it doesn’t stop the tension that sometimes boils between them.

This might be all they ever got, so her hands were frantic on him as he backed her into the door and hitched her legs up around his hips. Her earrings beeped again. “Ladybug,” he said into her ear, “if we both detransform we won’t be able to see a thing.”

“Yes,” she said breathlessly.

She said yes a lot for the next while.

After, they both transformed back into their superhero selves, both walked out on unsteady legs, and he brushed his fingers down the back of her arm in farewell. It’s not like Ladybug and Chat Noir can go on a date, and they’d talked over the fact that secrets only stay secret when an individual is keeping them. They can’t slip and call each other by their civilian names if they don’t know them.

So Marinette went home feeling a little bittersweet, because this might be all they got, but also she’d just had sex with Chat Noir in a utility closet and it was great and she couldn’t tell anyone or brag at all.

\--

The next time they saw each other, they both smiled a little softer than usual. But there was an akuma, so Chat just saluted her, made a pun about their opponent, and got to work. After, they fist-bumped as usual, grinning for the cameras.

He turned from the cameras and whispered, in a voice that would only carry to her, “I’ll never love anyone the way I love you.”

She smiled at him and wished she were lying when she said, “Same.”

\--

Seeing Nathanael at school kind of hurt, but at least they were in different classes. At lunch, she seamlessly went back to sitting with Alya and Nino and Adrien. Just how seamless it was probably said something Marinette should should feel bad about. She’d dated Nath for three months, but the whole part where she had way less free time than made sense from what people knew about her had been kind of a problem.

Adrien was still gorgeous enough to make her blush, but he always had been. It didn’t fluster her completely anymore. So he wasn’t interested. It wasn’t the end of the world. She’d slid into admiration rather than pining after a lot of hard work, slid far enough that she’d felt okay saying yes to Nath. But somehow things had changed so the categories of ‘partner I would die for’ and ‘boy I’d like to kiss’ had more overlap than not, and also gotten harder to introduce new subjects into.

\--

Her period arrived early, but it was light and over quickly, which was great, because she was too tired to deal with anything. The lack of cravings was weird, but sort of a mercy, because Marinette’s mom always gave her knowing looks and chamomile tea when Marinette started hitting the chocolate. Her periods were still settling into a normal pattern, and she really hoped that this was the new normal and not an anomaly. A single day of bleeding was way better than . . . pretty much every other option.

\--

Marinette probably had the flu or something, because she’d been feeling achy and dizzy for the last few days, but she and Alya had been planning to watch Alya’s television debut since the date was announced. They both lay on Marinette’s couch, legs tangled together and bowl of popcorn between them as the Ladybug documentary played.

“Ugh, I can’t believe they used the old footage,” Alya said, smothering her face in a throw pillow.

“Hey,” Marinette said, patting Alya’s knee. “It’s the best footage anyone has of Stone Heart! And just think how impressed they’ll be at the comparison when they see the kind of stuff you’re putting up on the Ladyblog these days.”

Alya perked up at that. “Did you know that hits on the blog are up 270% since they announced the documentary?”

“That’s awesome!”

On the TV, the documentary cut to an interview with Alya. The director had tried to interview all of the akuma victims, and there was some footage of Ladybug and Chat Noir giving press conferences as well as the action footage, but Alya kind of took center stage. A former akuma victim, founder of the most comprehensive news site on Ladybug, the only person to have gotten exclusive interviews,  _ and _ photogenic? The director had run with the fact that the camera - and most of Paris - already loved Alya. The interview went over some of Alya’s hunt to unmask Ladybug and how that had gotten her akumatized, but from there the documentary segued into talking about the history aspect, which was a much more comfortable topic to address.

They showed some of the closeups of Ladybug in Egyptian art, the narrator talking about prevalence and the fact that picking out Chat Noir was hard because of their whole cat thing. It cut to commercial, and Marinette hauled herself off the couch to stretch and grab the next round of snacks. It relieved some of the low-level ache in her uncooperative joints. She’d patrolled the night before, but that didn’t usually stick with her unless she’d botched a landing.

“You feeling okay?”

Marinette nodded. “Yeah, just some little bug. I swear I won’t get you sick with the cake.”

Alya perked up. “Cake?”

“Of course! We can’t properly celebrate your television debut without cake.” Marinette grabbed the cake from the fridge, frowning as the smell hit her. She could have sworn she’d put in a normal amount of espresso for the mocha cake, but it smelled overwhelmingly of bitter coffee. Dammit.

Alya followed her into the kitchen to get another glass of water - and probably to ask Marinette to cut a bigger slice. “Oh wow, that smells amazing.”

Marinette stopped frowning at the cake. “Yeah? Well, it should taste good. How big a piece do you want?” She brought the knife out at an angle from the first cut she’d made, moving slowly until Alya gestured for her to stop. Marinette laughed, but dished up the slab, then cut a significantly smaller piece for herself.

The commercial break ended, and Marinette quickly put the rest of the cake in the fridge before hitting the couch again. The cake tasted okay, at least, but it smelled so strongly of coffee that she couldn’t finish it.

\--

They ended patrol on a rooftop in the 13th arrondissement, and Chat very carefully ran his fingers up the blade of her palm. Marinette felt too tired to process.

“I think,” she said carefully, “that we’ll be better able to watch each other’s backs if we stay focused.

His hand fell, fingers curling inwards. He hesitated, then nodded reluctantly. His eyes tracked over her face, looking for something he evidently found, because his face went soft. “I’ll always have your back.

She wanted to reach out to him, but kept her hand flat to her side, fingers pressed into her thigh. Their unspoken devotion had been better unspoken, unconsummated. She wanted to be with him forever, but her chances of doing that would be lowered if she was distracted from rescuing him by thoughts of frantic lips on skin. Maybe when they finally tracked down Hawk Moth.  “I know. Same, kitty.”

He took her hand and kissed her knuckles and leapt away into the darkness.

\--

Ladybug and Chat had been thrown together by magic and luck. Alya was there for Marinette by choice, and Marinette wouldn’t trade that for anything. Alya was also the first one to notice - or, well, the first one to extrapolate and mention anything. As Marinette curled up over the toilet after gym, Alya leaned against the sink outside, scrolling through her phone. “Girl, from the symptoms you’ve been showing, you’ve either got some horrible kind of organ failure going on, or you’re pregnant.”

“What,” Marinette choked out, but then another wave of nausea hit, and she’d barely been sick at all since she became Ladybug, and this had been going on for a while. It wasn’t like she or Chat had stopped to think about a condom. Marinette finished and stumbled out to rinse her mouth.

Alya raised an eyebrow. “So is it a possibility?”

“Fuck,” Marinette said resignedly.

Alya patted her on the back. “We’ll go to my place after school.”

They made it through the rest of the day, stopped in a pharmacy on the way to Alya’s, and holed up in her room. It had its own bathroom, so at least there was privacy while Marinette went to pee on the horrifying stick.

Very deliberately not thinking, she dropped the stick in the plastic sandwich bag Alya had given her, tidied herself, and washed her hands. There still had to be a few minutes to wait. She shoved the rest of the packaging in Alya’s garbage can, then opened the door to Alya’s room. “I can’t look.”

Alya turned away from her computer. “We’ll look together. How much longer?”

“Like three minutes?”

“Okay, then you’re gonna come watch this cat video with me. One of my followers just sent it to me and I think I might die of cute.”

Marinette stood behind Alya, holding the damnable plastic bag. The video was very cute. When it was done, Alya retweeted the link, then turned around. “Time?”

Marinette nodded. They looked. A little plus sign winked up at them, inadequately menacing for what it represented. “I’m pregnant,” Marinette said numbly.

Alya nodded slowly, then took the bag from her. “I’m just going to throw all of this out before my mom can see it.”

Marinette curled up on Alya’s bed, hugging a pillow tight in front of her stomach. A few minutes later Alya came back from throwing all the incriminating garbage out and sat next to her, carding her fingers through Marinette’s hair. “What are you going to do?”

Marinette laughed hysterically. “I have no idea.”

They sat there a moment longer, seconds ticking away where there was a thing growing inside her inevitably. Alya didn’t stop with Marinette’s hair. “Do you want to talk to the father?”

Marinette sobbed once, and then hiccuped. “I don’t even know his name.”

Alya stilled. “Okay.”

It took Marinette a moment to catch on as to why Alya was freaking out, because she was all full of static and white noise. “Oh!” She rolled her head to look at Alya, touched her elbow. “No, I’m okay, it’s fine. Well, I’m not okay. I’m so far from okay. But it was Chat Noir.”

Alya’s eyebrows shot up. “Well! Okay. That’s definitely a thing. Do you want to contact him?”

Marinette shook her head. “In the end, it’s nothing to do with him.”

Alya looked at the door, but kept her hand soft on Marinette’s cheek. “One of the options you have open has a definite time limit.”

Marinette swallowed hard, and nodded. It was the only real option. There would be so many questions she couldn’t answer, not to mention the risk inherent in being Ladybug and in the progression of her pregnancy revealing that she was Ladybug. Her parents would be so disappointed in her, and she couldn’t - she didn’t even start Terminale for six months! She’d have to give it up no matter what. This would be safer, and it would be a clean break, and no one would ever have to know except for her and Alya. “I know you’re Catholic, but would you go with me?”

“Honey,” Alya said, and leaned down to awkwardly hug Marinette, “I will never be too Catholic to go with you anywhere.” 

Marinette teared up, and hugged Alya back hard.

“I mean, I maybe draw the line at going with you to rob the Vatican? But I would definitely wait outside and drive the getaway car.”

They both laughed, and everything seemed almost bearable.

\--

Marinette did her own research on finding a clinic. Alya was the research guru, but Marinette felt she ought to take some kind of agency in the whole mess. Skipping school would raise too many questions, so she scheduled the first of a mandatory two appointments for Saturday morning. It felt like a huge yawning void of time until Saturday. Everything was ticking away.

The first appointment was - well, okay, the doctor was understanding? And not judgy. She judged that Marinette was 9 weeks pregnant, which Marinette could have confirmed on her own. But it meant that they had to move relatively quickly. Marinette scheduled the appointment for as soon as it was legally allowed - a week later. Theoretically to let her change her mind, but she wasn’t going to. She was pretty firmly set on this course of action.

\--

The morning sickness kicked into high gear, which would have decided her if she wasn’t decided already. She was nauseated all the time, and dizzy with it. Marinette mostly managed to keep food down at all because if she didn’t the painkillers she took for the headaches would come back up.

And people did this on purpose, every day. Well, it was probably different if you were older - chemistry or something. It was also almost definitely different if it were a route to something you really wanted, if what arrived at the end would be a gift instead of an unwanted burden. Marinette tried not to think about it too much, just lay with her head in Alya’s lap while Alya ate lunch and talked to Nino and Adrien.

Adrien leaned over the table to look at Marinette. His eyes sparkled like particularly concerned peridots. “Are you feeling okay?”

Marinette waved a hand dismissively, wishing desperately that she couldn’t feel a blush rising. The very idea of Adrien knowing what was going on with her made her wish the ground would open up and swallow her. He’d been so nice the past couple weeks that it felt like he’d have to notice something soon, and then Marinette would have to see if her Lucky Charm would extend to memory erasers or a new identity. “Just a little under the weather. I’ll be fine after the weekend.”

Nino leaned over to look at her, too, and Marinette drew up her knees farther. “You’ve been under the weather for a while.”

“You’d get run down, too, if you spent as much time sewing as Marinette does,” Alya deflected.

“Gotta have a good portfolio to go to ESMOD!” She said it as perkily as she could manage, which wasn’t nearly as perky as usual, but seemed to pass muster.

The boys sat back, and Marinette breathed a quiet sigh of relief. Alya rubbed her arm. She was going to bake Alya such a cake when she could stand to smell cake batter again.

\--

The akuma was a florist, and Marinette wanted to die. Smells. Why. She took a moment to throw up in an alley, then cast Lucky Charm. They made it work.

“Are you feeling okay, LB?”

“Fine,” she said through gritted teeth. Then she closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and managed a smile that didn’t feel like a feral threat display. “I’ve got the flu, so I’m actually not super great, but I’ll be okay soon.”

“Okay,” he said, then propped one arm on her shoulder. “Can you imagine if Hawk Moth would let us take sick days?”

“He’d be more reasonable than my Chemistry teacher,” Marinette said, and then they both managed to smile at each other, back on an even keel.

\--

The appointment was mostly paperwork. So much paperwork. It was a good thing Alya was with her, too, because the rule was that girls under 18 needed an adult with them, and Alya had a reasonable fake ID to go to Nino’s shows in more restrictive clubs. The nurse didn’t scrutinize it, just explained how Marinette would probably be out of it from sedation and need someone to look after her. Marinette knew Alya was up to it.

The sedation made her feel incredibly loopy, and holding on to Alya’s hand was what kept her grounded. They had to insert rods to open her cervix, in a weird and impersonally invasive process, but the procedure itself only took a few minutes, at least according to the clock. Marinette didn’t feel like she was really tracking time in a normal way, especially after, when she was left alone except for Alya so that the sedation could wear off. Her tongue felt thick and she felt even more nauseated than usual. And empty. But that was the point, right? “D’you know I’m Ladybug?” she asked dreamily.

Alya didn’t even look up from her phone, just squeezed Marinette’s hand. “For a couple years.”

“Yeah?” Marinette should probably be alarmed, but everything was so fuzzy.

“I keep your secret safe,” she said, “the way you keep Paris safe. Don’t know about Chat, but then, he’s not my best friend.” She looked up and smiled at Marinette. No wonder she hadn’t asked how Marinette knew Chat Noir well enough to sleep with him.

“I love you,” Marinette said, and there were tears welling up in her eyes.

Alya leaned over with a tissue, dabbing at the corner of her eye. “I love you, too. You feeling up to getting back to my place? I have popsicles and like five Fast and the Furious movies.”

Marinette sat up, and the ache that managed to be felt through the haze was awkward. “Can we take a cab?”

“Yeah,” Alya said.

The cab driver was - unpleasant about where he’d picked them up, and Marinette felt more motion sick than she ever had in her life. But they got to Alya’s, and her apartment was only one floor up, and then Marinette was curled up on Alya’s couch. It was slightly too warm to justify wrapping up in a blanket, but it made Marinette feel better. They curled up together, and it gradually sank in that it was over.

\--

Monday morning Marinette walked into school with a spring in her step, feeling better than she had in weeks. Alya bumped shoulders with her, and Marinette bumped back, giggling.

At lunch, Adrien put a hand on her wrist before she could join Alya and Nino already at the table. When she turned to him, he rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. “You’re looking a lot better!”

“Feeling better,” she said, wondering why this was a conversation he wanted to have in private.

“Um, I was thinking, since you are doing better, would you want to get ice cream after school? With me?”

Marinette felt a hot blush washing up over her face, inexorable as the tide. “Um! I - I’d really like that.”

He smiled at her.

It felt like it could be a start.


End file.
